Review: 'The Croods' may be obvious, but its heart is in the right place

Chris Sanders seems to me to be one of the shining stars in the animation world right now, and while I don't think his new film 'The Croods' is as great as either "How To Train Your Dragon" or "Lilo & Stitch," it's still a solid execution of a fairly simple idea. There are some visually breathtaking moments, and the family material in the film is executed with real heart, directly and honestly. For families who have been waiting for a movie to see together for most of the spring, "The Croods" is going to be a welcome sight, indeed.

Eep (voiced by Emma Stone) is a typical teenage girl, bristling at the restrictive rules her parents live by, eager to see the wider world around her, and able to hunt and kill prey with her bare hands. She is, after all, a caveman. Or cavegirl. Or whatever you'd call her. She lives with her father Grug (Nicolas Cage), her mother Ugga (Catherine Keener), her brother Thunk (Clark Duke), her grandmother (Cloris Leachman), and her baby sister Sandy, and they spend most of their time blocked safely in their cave, afraid of the outside world. They venture out to eat, and that's about it. Grug believes the entire world is a threat, and there's value in fear. To his credit, pretty much everyone they've ever known has been eaten or stepped on or otherwise killed, and they are the last of their kind that they know of, so there's some justification for the way Grug feels.

All Eep wants to do is explore the world, though, and see what else there is. One night, she sees a mysterious light outside her cave and when she follows it, she ends up meeting Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), who seems to occupy a space a few rungs up the evolutionary ladder. He's got fire, which Eep's never seen before, and he seems largely unafraid. He tells her that the world is ending, and that he's determined to follow the sun to a place beyond all the earthquakes and fire, and he asks her to join him.

What follows is a fairly standard family film story about parents learning to let go of their children, and judging it just by the plot of the film, "The Croods" is routine stuff. What elevates it is writing that avoids the smarmy pop culture joke nonsense that often gets passed off as family films, and a visual palette that is often quite beautiful. In terms of the reality that the film establishes, think something that falls somewhere on the continuum between "The Flintstones" and "Quest For Fire." The creatures that inhabit the world are fantastic and bizarre, and once the Croods find themselves on the move because their cave has been destroyed, the world itself becomes very surreal and gorgeously realized.

Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders co-wrote and co-directed the film, working from an original idea by John Cleese, and they get particularly strong vocal work out of the cast. This might be one of the most engaged performances I've heard from Nic Cage in a while, and when the film reaches for emotional impact, it often lands its punches. Stone is very funny in the movie, and she plays well off of Ryan Reynolds, who embodies an optimism and a fearlessness that Grug has trouble understanding. Keener may not have a lot to do in the film, but she plays every beat honestly, and it matters. As with "Lilo & Stitch," Sanders voices one of the main critters in the movie, a weird little sloth thingy named Belt, and the character is used as a sort of comedy punctuation mark in several scenes.

I had been warned that there were some sequences that might be too intense for younger kids, but my five-year-old seemed fine with all of it. Sanders and De Micco stage some exciting sequences, like a breakfast hunt that is scored, oddly, to a new arrangement of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk," but they keep things light enough that I think you'll be fine with all but the most sensitive of children. If anything, it is the emotional content and a few choices made by Grug late in the film that might be worth a conversation with kids afterwards.

I think DreamWorks in general seems to have finally moved away from the jokey template that they used to follow in every film, and I like that their films seem more sincere now than ever before. "The Croods" isn't my favorite film they'e ever released, but it is definitely a charming option for parents who want to hit the theater this weekend.
"The Croods" opens in theaters everywhere this Friday.

A respected critic and commentator for fifteen years, Drew McWeeny helped create the online film community as "Moriarty" at Ain't It Cool News, and now proudly leads two budding Film Nerds in their ongoing movie education.

Comments

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

The best Dreamworks animation movies are mediocre and this one doesn't look even "that" good. I am not comparing their work to Pixar. It's just their marketing. They are not interested in telling good stories, or even decent stories. They are only interested in money and sadly it is quite obvious in every movie they made. This is Hollywood problem but Dreamworks is pretty shameful about this.

Opinions and all, but I think How to Train Your Dragon would take issue with being called mediocre. That movie was huge, and not just with kids. I haven't met an adult (over the age of 30) who didn't love that one.

Remember when children's films were made for children, not for their parents?

Remember when "family film" meant something more than "quilt a child into spending more time with their parents"?

Seriously, watch these movies and try to consider who they're really being made for; the movies I grew up watching in the eighties (both "children"s and "family" films) were for the kids more than the adults. They actually had the children getting AWAY from the adults, not including them. Grown-ups were automatically suspect and/or completely useless. They taught us that we could do anything away from our families and adults.

Today, these movies for kids/families convey the exact opposite. Notice how many plots involve children being forced to include their parents in whatever adventure they're having. How many messages involve the children giving their parents a "second chance" or realizing that they were right all along. These films aren't for kids to have fun or imaginations as much as they're for making them feel guilty for not thinking their parents are the coolest, smartest parents ever. For making them feel bad to not include their parents as much as their friends.

BRAVE is a good example of this: Its not Merida who does everything in that movie (defeat the bear, etc.) or has the character arc - Its her mother. Most children, particularly in America, will never experience arranged marriages or having to kill their food or the responsibility of keeping peace among kingdoms. So, what exactly does a child take from BRAVE? - To respect and include the older generation. At the end of that film Merida has no friends, other than her Mom. Her mother is the one who benefited from the events in the movie, not Merida.

FINDING NEMO actually does the same thing: What exactly does a CHILD take away from that film? Its about MARLIN learning to let go of his child. Nemo learns to be strong and unafraid only when other ADULTS teach him those things. He has no friends, only his Dad and grown-ups. So, the only thing a kid watching that movie is really getting is that he should really give his Dad/parent a break, because they mean well. Completely over-looking that its his father's overprotective "parenting" that gets Nemo into trouble in the first place. How much are you willing to bet the sequel involves Nemo having his own child/children and discovering how sage and relevant his Dad has been all along?

Interesting points made. In today's media landscape, you find the "kids on their own" stuff mainly on TV - the virtually non-existent parents in the Disney Channel sitcoms, the animation like "Phineas and Ferb" etc, where parents exist but are relegated to secondary roles.

I think that's because, as you point out, going to the movies is a communal experience, and it's virtually the only draw that the theater has these days. It's not a world where someone will go see a movie like The Goonies in droves anymore, because the kids want to - the parents will have to WANT to watch it in order to make the effort.

So I think it's a market driven decision rather than a decision to guilt the children into going. If anything, it's a way to get the parents to feel better about themselves - by taking the kids to the theater, they are "involved" rather than just dumping the kids on the sofa to watch "Hannah Montana" reruns...

As for The Croods, my son REALLY wants to see it, because the trailer cracked him up. I haven't seen it, but he described some joke to me about a character catching fire and being told "go get rid of it in that tall, dry grass!"... which actually cracked me up too. So, we'll be going, I guess. Just don't blame me for the family-centric themes!

As a father, I was pleasantly surprised (bordering on stunned) that the dad got to evolve beyond the standard TV/movie stereotype of "lovably clueless, bordering on inept". (It's better than the "working too hard and needs to be taught What is Really Important" stereotype, I guess.) Instead, Dad (a) realizes that the world has changed, and he needs to change with it and (b) chooses to sacrifice himself so that the rest of the family can reach safety. I was expecting (a), but not (b), hence the pleasant surprise.

(Yes, the impact of his sacrifice was diluted two scenes later, but at least he got to rescue the family pet(s) and still look like a hero.)